1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for controlling progress of a video game by displaying a player character on an image display screen of an image display apparatus, and by controlling an action of the characters displayed on the image display screen in response to operation(s) by a player.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, various kinds of so-called role playing games (RPG; that is, a game in which a player plays a role of a character in a world of the game, and accomplishes a predetermined object while enjoying a process that the character grows through various experiences) have been provided.
Part of the appeal of a RPG is generally a scene in which a player character acting in response to operations by the player executes a battle against an enemy character thwarting accomplishment of a predetermined object in the RPG. In a conventional battle scene, actions of the player character and the enemy character are alternately executed one by one. For this reason, realism (realistic sensation) of an action scene (in particular, a battle scene) was low.
Further, the player character can select a weapon to be used when the player character attacks an enemy character among multiple kinds of weapons. However, a menu screen for setting a weapon must be displayed in order to select any weapon, and the player is require to set selection of the weapon on the menu screen. For this reason, such an operation (selection of the weapon) also results in one cause of a deterioration of realism (realistic sensation) of an action scene.
Moreover, the player can arbitrarily customize such a weapon by means of addition of an item, for example. Since the battle scene in a conventional RPG proceeds only by selecting some action patterns such as “battle”, which are set in advance, as an “action command”, it is important for the player to “cause the player character to utilize any weapon” and “cause the player character to execute any action”. For this reason, it is no need to display customization information for a weapon to be utilized in the battle scene visually. Thus, in the conventional RPG, such a display process has not been executed.
In order to solve this problem, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 6-105959 discloses that an enemy character attacks a game character when specific setting time for the enemy character elapses without stopping lapse of time even while the player inputs a command for the game character. Specifically, in this patent application publication, it is adopted a gauge gradually filling in accordance with lapse of time during a battle between the game character and the enemy character. The player can input a command for the game character when the gauge is full. Thus, realism (realistic sensation) of a battle scene is improved.
Further, in order to solve troublesomeness to display a dedicated menu screen every time for selection of a weapon, it has been proposed a method of displaying selectable weapons as icons around a player character in a ring-like manner (see “Seiken Densetsu II (Holy Sword Legend)”, Aug. 30, 1993, NTT Publishing Co., Ltd., P. 12) (hereinafter, referred to as a “non-patent document”). According to the method, it is possible to improve visibility of the player compared with a method of text displaying a weapon name of each of weapons, whereby the player can select a desired weapon in a short time. Thus, it is possible to improve operability of a RPG for the player.
In the case where the technique disclosed in the documents described above is utilized, realism (realistic sensation) of a battle scene in a RPG can be heightened, and this makes it possible to increase interest of the player in the RPG.
However, in the technique disclosed in the non-patent document, a list of selectable weapons are just displayed around the player character as icons in place of opening of the menu screen. Architecture that the player character is caused to execute an arbitrary action by inputting a command after any one is selected from the displayed weapons has not changed basically. In other words, an icon display is merely adopted in place of new opening of a menu screen. For this reason, there has been a problem that the player is still forced to carry out troublesome operations and the player cannot feel high realistic sensation.